SharePointhttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/sharepoint
en-usWed, 13 Dec 2017 22:32:59 -0500Wed, 13 Dec 2017 22:32:59 -0500The latest news on SharePoint from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-sharepoint-cvp-jeff-teper-interview-2016-5One of Microsoft's most popular products is finally coming to smartphones (MSFT)http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-sharepoint-cvp-jeff-teper-interview-2016-5
Wed, 04 May 2016 00:01:00 -0400Matt Weinberger
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/57293f3b52bcd063018c0a2f-1188-792/jeffteperatthesharep_web.jpg" alt="jeff teper sharepoint microsoft" data-mce-source="Microsoft" data-mce-caption="Microsoft Corporate VP Jeff Teper"></p><p>Today, Microsoft ends years of waiting by announcing that a SharePoint app is coming soon for iPhone, followed by apps for Windows 10 and Android.</p>
<p>With the launch of this app, SharePoint's 190 million-license business will finally join the rest of Microsoft Office suite in the so-called "cloud first, mobile first" vision laid out by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.</p>
<p>SharePoint is Microsoft's team collaboration product, and does a lot of different things — you can share information on it, use it for a corporate intranet, search company documents stored in a bunch of different places, and much more.</p>
<p>It's the kind of multi-purpose enterprise product that startups like Box love to pick on, but it's a huge product for Microsoft, generating more than $3 billion a year in revenues for the company.</p>
<p>In addition to announcing these apps, Microsoft is officially releasing the latest version, SharePoint Server 2016. </p>
<h2>Cloud first</h2>
<p>This news also is a kind of homecoming for Microsoft Corporate VP Jeff Teper: He led SharePoint from its inception in 2000 through 2012, at which point he took a bigger-picture role in helping to lead the crucial Office 365 cloud service. He was also tasked with advising Nadella on the company's cloud shift. </p>
<p>In late 2015, Teper rejoined SharePoint to lead it forward into the future, amid mounting competition from collaboration companies like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/aaron-levie-on-satya-nadella-2015-3">Box</a> and Slack.</p>
<p>In his abscence, Teper says, the SharePoint team was more concerned with reliability and stability than advancing the product into the modern era of the smartphone — even as <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-email-app-goes-to-microsoft-outlook-2015-2">apps like Microsoft Outlook have thrived on platforms like iPhone and Android</a>.</p>
<p>"When I came back last summer, the team was focused on earning the trust of businesses by making it work great," Teper says. "The biggest thing we've been working on is getting it into the cloud."</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/572a2e9e9105844d018c0ae4-1225-884/2016%20may%204%20future%20of%20sharepoint%20-new%20sp%20home%20in%20o365.jpg" alt="sharepoint server 2016 home page" data-mce-source="Microsoft" data-mce-caption="The new SharePoint Server 2016 homepage."></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Around 40 percent of SharePoint's 190 million seats (industry-speak for licenses sold) are using the Office 365 cloud version, Teper says, and he only expects that to increase. That means that those users are getting new updates to SharePoint, as a subscription model, plus the ability to access their files and sites from anywhere.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Still, lots of customers use SharePoint with their on-premises servers, meaning it can be hard to access them when not connected to the corporate intranet. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">With SharePoint Server 2016, Teper says that it's much easier for all of SharePoint's customers to make their team sites accessible from anywhere, which is important with the new smartphone app. On both the desktop and mobile, SharePoint is designed to be the "central piece" of your working life, with deep integrations with the whole Office 365 suite, Teper says. A new SharePoint homepage can make it easier to see the integrations with other Office products.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/572941cd52bcd022008c09ad-1757-881/2016%20may%204%20future%20of%20sharepoint%20-new%20ui%20for%20file%20folder%20in%20onedrive%20for%20business%20ios_browser.jpg" alt="sharepoint iphone microsoft" data-mce-source="Microsoft" data-mce-caption="Microsoft SharePoint for iPhone, alongside the new SharePoint home page."></span></p>
<p><span>The iPhone version is available "in the coming weeks," with Android and Windows after that. That means</span><span> full access to your team's files, calendars, and announcements news feed, from anywhere. Teper says that it's like "putting the intranet in your pocket."</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"></span>Teper also boasts of SharePoint's newfound integration with the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-is-taking-its-cues-from-facebook-as-it-totally-shakes-up-office-2016-4">Microsoft Graph</a>, which is a little bit like the famed Facebook Social Graph for the workplace. It means that on mobile and desktop, SharePoint will automatically prioritize and show you the documents and project files that are relevant to you at that moment.</p>
<p>"You no longer have to hunt for information, information hunts for you," Teper says.</p>
<h2>Serious business</h2>
<p>This news is going to make some waves: You might never guess from its status as a team-collaboration tool for the enterprise, but SharePoint has a huge and vibrant community of developers and enthusiasts.</p>
<p>One key to its success is the fact that you can customize it to do all sorts of things. Teper even says that people have had their careers made by how well and quickly they built a SharePoint site, impressing their bosses.</p>
<p>"I think that SharePoint was this magical app that did stuff out of the box, but could be adapted to specific needs," Teper says.</p>
<p><div>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en" data-cards="" data-conversation="">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">
Clearly <a href="https://twitter.com/sharepint">@sharepint</a> has started early! There is a beer cooler at the <a href="https://twitter.com/DFWSPUG">@DFWSPUG</a> Holiday Party! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SharePoint?src=hash">#SharePoint</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SharePint?src=hash">#SharePint</a> <a href="https://t.co/JYm2WMX5y4">pic.twitter.com/JYm2WMX5y4</a> </p>— Jeffrey.Aztec.Barnes (@AztecConsulting) <a href="https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/676923199599337473">December 16, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></p>
<p>Microsoft says that its partners have created a $10 billion economy around SharePoint, selling installation, customization, and migration services. And people actually love SharePoint, attending parties and mixers all over the globe to meet up with like-minded folks and pick up tips on how to use it even better. </p>
<p>Those parties apparently get pretty wild, Teper says.</p>
<p>"When it's time for happy hour, people have a 'SharePint,'" Teper says. "This is serious business."</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/litbit-scott-notebloom-funding-2016-5" >This guy helped Yahoo and Apple grow like crazy — now he's raised $7 million to solve a big problem</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-sharepoint-cvp-jeff-teper-interview-2016-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/excel-data-hack-text-columns-sort-finance-spreadsheet-2015-10">This handy tool solves one of the most annoying problems in Excel</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-slashes-prices-on-yammer-2012-11Microsoft Slashes Yammer Prices 80 Percent (MSFT)http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-slashes-prices-on-yammer-2012-11
Mon, 12 Nov 2012 16:43:00 -0500Julie Bort
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/50a167f3eab8ea381e000035-400-300/microsoft-jared-spataro.jpg" border="0" alt="Microsoft Jared Spataro" /></p><p>Microsoft today laid out its grand strategy for <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/yammer">Yammer</a>, the social enterprise startup it bought over the summer <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yammer-microsoft-acquisition-confirmed-2012-6">for $1.2 billion</a>.</p>
<p>Step 1: Slash prices.</p>
<p>Step 2: Bake it into Microsoft's cloud-based software.</p>
<p>Step 3: Convince people to use it.</p>
<p>Microsoft announced the changes as part of its&nbsp;SharePoint Conference 2012, which kicks off today in Las Vegas.</p>
<p>Yammer had four pricing plans. Microsoft cut those down to two, a freebie version most companies use, and the "enterprise network" plan, which costs $3 per user a month. It used to cost five times that&mdash;$15 per user a month.</p>
<p>More importantly, Microsoft has made Yammer a feature in two of its cloud software products. Those are SharePoint Online, a cloud-hosted version of Microsoft's content-management software, and Office 365, the cloud version of its Microsoft Office suite, which includes SharePoint Online.</p>
<p>However, Microsoft will only sell the Yammer-SharePoint combo to companies who already have an Enterprise Agreement, the standard way Microsoft sells software to big businesses,&nbsp;<a href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2012/11/12/putting-social-to-work.aspx">says Jared Spataro, senior director, Office Division</a>.</p>
<p>It's less clear how Microsoft intends to integrate Yammer with the standard version of SharePoint, which generally runs on customers' servers or servers maintained by a third-party provider. The recently released SharePoint 2013 has its own Yammer-like news feed. But even before the acquisition, Yammer was integrating its software into SharePoint, and recently announced software tools should make it easy to deepen that integration.</p>
<p>SharePoint Online, Office 365, and Yammer will have a "unified identity, integrated document management, and feed aggregation." Yammer recently unveiled tools for taking its identity and feeds to other Web-based software, so it seems likely those unified offerings will be based strongly on Yammer's products.</p>
<p>Microsoft is also <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nationalfield-obama-startup-2012-11">answering criticisms</a> that people don't want a version of <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/facebook">Facebook</a> for work&mdash;a common caricature of Yammer. Instead of a way for sharing frivolous-seeming updates, they want tools that will measurably help them be more productive.</p>
<p>"If you want to realize the potential of social networking, you have to get people to participate," Spataro said. "They can't just sign up and walk away.&nbsp; They have to use it." He added that Microsoft thinks Yammer's social feed combined with SharePoint's document handling is the ticket to success.</p>
<p>One thing we can't expect: Any word of how Yammer will integrate with another Microsoft acquisition, <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/skype">Skype</a>, the video-chat and instant-messaging service, reports&nbsp;<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-details-its-roadmap-and-pricing-for-sharepoint-yammer-integration-7000007268/">Mary Jo Foley at ZDNet</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Don't miss:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/best-windows-8-apps-2012-10" class="title">The 10 Best Free Windows 8 Apps For Work And Play &gt;</a></strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-slashes-prices-on-yammer-2012-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/david-sacks-just-made-three-big-promises-to-yammer-customers-2012-6David Sacks Just Made Three Big Promises To Yammer Customers (MSFT)http://www.businessinsider.com/david-sacks-just-made-three-big-promises-to-yammer-customers-2012-6
Thu, 28 Jun 2012 12:26:00 -0400Julie Bort
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4e67767669beddad4200000d/david-sacks.jpg" border="0" alt="David Sacks" /></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/yammer" class="hidden_link">Yammer</a> founder David Sacks sent an email to Yammer customers today filled with vows for the future.</p>
<ul>
<li>He promised that the free version wasn't going away and that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/microsoft" class="hidden_link">Microsoft</a> would continue to improve it.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>He promised that Yammer would still remain his baby, even as he took a job with Microsoft.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>He promised that Yammer would become integrated with four Microsoft products: SharePoint, Office 365, Dynamics (Microsoft's CRM software) and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/skype" class="hidden_link">Skype</a>.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
<p>Notice that he did not promise to integrate Yammer with Lync, Microsoft's on-premises software for instant messaging and Web conferencing. That's interesting and weird. Microsoft has said that Lync is its fastest-growing server application business.</p>
<p>Then again, we can't blame him for avoiding Lync. When Microsoft bought Skype over a year ago, they promised that Skype and Lync would be somehow integrated, and that has yet to happen. Microsoft has strangely stopped talking about Lync at all.</p>
<p>All of it will be a tall order for Sacks. He's got to integrate a startup culture with an established corporate giant. He's got to integrate a completely cloud-based product with traditional software. He's got to keep Microsoft from treating Yammer like a poor step child to its more lucrative cloud offerings.</p>
<p>That's why competitors like Huddle's CEO Alastair Mitchell <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/huddle-ceo-microsoft-will-destroy-yammer-2012-6">told Business Insider "It's pretty obvious" that Microsoft "will destroy Yammer."</a></p>
<p>Here's the email in full:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Dear Yammer Customer,</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I am pleased to announce that Yammer has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Microsoft. After the close of the deal, Microsoft will continue to invest in Yammer's freemium, stand-alone service, and the team will remain under my direction within the Microsoft Office Division. With the backing of Microsoft, our aim is to massively accelerate our vision to change the way work gets done with software that is built for the enterprise and loved by users.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">As a Yammer customer, you will continue to get a secure, private social network&mdash;delivered with the same focus on simplicity, innovation, and cross-platform experiences. Over time, you&rsquo;ll see more and more connections to SharePoint, Office 365, Dynamics and Skype. Yammer&rsquo;s expertise in empowering employees, driving adoption, and delivering rapid innovation in the cloud will not only continue to power our stand-alone service, but also anchor the communication and collaboration experiences in Office 365.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">You can find more information in <a href="http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2012/Jun12/06-25MSYammerPR.aspx" target="_blank">this press release</a> and our <a href="http://blog.yammer.com/blog/2012/06/yammers-next-chapter.html" target="_blank">blog post</a>.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Sincerely,</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">David Sacks</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Yammer CEO and Founder</p>
<p><strong>Don't miss:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-yammer-sales-viral-adoption-model-2012-6">Microsoft Wants Yammer To Help It Sell Microsoft Products In A Whole New Way</a></strong></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/david-sacks-just-made-three-big-promises-to-yammer-customers-2012-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/yammer-microsoft-product-fit-2012-6Yammer Could Really Fix A Bunch Of Microsoft's Products (MSFT)http://www.businessinsider.com/yammer-microsoft-product-fit-2012-6
Sun, 17 Jun 2012 10:00:00 -0400Julie Bort
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4f3470d5ecad04dd39000027/steve-ballmer-hugging-ryan-seacrest.jpg" border="0" alt="Steve Ballmer hugging Ryan Seacrest" /></p><p><a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/yammer">Yammer</a> is already doing for <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/microsoft">Microsoft</a> what Microsoft should be doing for itself&mdash;making a lot of it's software more social.</p>
<p>So we're not surprised that Microsoft wants to buy Yammer for a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yammer-microsoft-acquisition-confirmed-2012-6">reported $1.2 billion</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>
<p>Yammer's thing is to give employees a private Facebook-like experience where they can chat, do group messaging, share files, and create shared Web pages.</p>
<p>In doing that, Yammer competes with a lot of Microsoft software. But Yammer does the social thing a lot better.</p>
<p>Here's all the the Microsoft products it could impact:</p>
<p><strong>Microsoft Lync</strong>. Lync does IM, Web conferencing, and integration with Microsoft Office and Outlook. Lync is a modestly popular product for the enterprise. There's an old-school version which needs its own servers in a company-owned data center. And there's a cloud version.</p>
<p>Yammer could add way better group messaging features to Lync.</p>
<p><strong>Microsoft SharePoint:</strong>&nbsp; SharePoint is similar to Yammer in a lot of ways. This is Microsoft's popular Web software for file sharing and collaboration. But it really doesn't do the whole social thing very well.</p>
<p>Yammer already fixes some of that for SharePoint. Yammer connects with SharePoint: When someone works with a SharePoint document, that info can be posted to the Yammer stream.</p>
<p><strong>Microsoft Dynamics:</strong> Likewise, Yammer is hooked into&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yammer-is-unstoppable-5m-enterprise-users-and-a-big-partnership-with-microsoft-2012-4">Microsoft Dynamics</a> (a competitor to <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/sap">SAP</a> and <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/salesforce">Salesforce</a>.com). A Yammer post gets sent when people make changes to files in Dynamics.</p>
<p>These Yammer integrations can be awful if implemented poorly, creating a lot of Yammer spam. (Who cares if so-and-so updated a SharePoint file?) But with the right tweaking, Yammer could be great, automatically keeping groups informed on stuff they really care about.</p>
<p><strong>Microsoft Office:</strong>&nbsp; In April, <a href="http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/yammer-acquires-onedrum-to-make-content-social-1642789.htm">Yammer bought OneDrum </a>and got a file-sharing tool and desktop sync tool that will let people collaborate on Office Documents and sync them to their hard drives. Microsoft has dabbled with this in a lot of ways over the years but collaboration is now a feature of Office 2010 for use with some form of cloud Office, like Office 365. Or its a function of SharePoint.</p>
<p>Microsoft doesn't really need this file-sharing technology from Yammer. We'll see what it does with it.</p>
<p>The bigger issue is if Microsoft will set Yammer up to run on its own, like <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/skype">Skype</a>; if it plans to use the Yammer team to improve its other products; or if it's looking to dismantle Yammer and fold it into a larger division.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yammer-microsoft-product-fit-2012-6#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/yammer-elbows-into-territory-occupied-by-box-and-jive-2012-4Yammer Elbows Into Territory Occupied By Box And Jivehttp://www.businessinsider.com/yammer-elbows-into-territory-occupied-by-box-and-jive-2012-4
Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:00:00 -0400Matt Rosoff
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4f4e7ea9eab8eaff2600005f/david-sacks-yammer-ceo.jpg" border="0" alt="David Sacks Yammer CEO" /></p><p>The lines between the latest hot crop of enterprise startups are starting to blur, as companies who previously staked out one thin slice of the feature set needed by business uses begin elbowing into one another's territory.</p>
<p>Today, Yammer pushed further into collaboration space by buying <a href="http://onedrum.com/">oneDrum</a>, a small U.K. startup that helps users share, sync, and simultaneously edit files, particularly <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/microsoft">Microsoft</a> Office files.</p>
<p>It brings Yammer into more direct competition with companies like Jive and Box, who specialize in helping employees at companies store and work on documents together.</p>
<p>It's also a very smart move for Yammer, whose original value proposition -- helping users communicate by answering the question "what are you doing right now?" -- has always seemed a bit narrow. Yammer has</p>
<p>Once oneDrum's technology is integrated into Yammer, which should happen this summer, Yammer will get several interesting features:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Desktop sync.</strong> Users will see all their Yammer groups appear as folders on their desktop. Whenever a user drags a file into one of those folders, the file will become accessible to all coworkers. Whenever somebody saves it, the update will be saved everywhere.&nbsp;</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Search and discovery. </strong>This is a big problem with collaboration tools: users may be putting files in a shared location, but their colleagues may not be aware that new information is being shared, or may not know where to find these files. With the oneDrum technology, whenever a user drags a file into their Yammer folder, all other users will see an update in the Yammer communication window. All shared files also become full-text-searchable -- so, for instance, I can do a desktop search on a term like "David Sacks" and I'll see files that my colleagues have put there.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Simultaneous editing of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. </strong>Multiple workers can edit the same file at the same time. This feature does not require an Office plug-in, unlike competing technologies like Jive Software's <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-is-moving-slowly-to-add-social-features-to-office-so-jive-is-filling-the-gaps-2011-5">OffiSync</a>. That means it's easier to deploy and, according to Yammer, will perform a lot better. Having this feature will also, amazingly, place Yammer ahead of Microsoft, which still doesn't offer native co-editing of Excel 2010 -- you have to use a browser-based version of Excel to have two people in the file at the same time. (The simultaneous editing feature of oneDrum is Windows-only for now, but will be coming to the Mac. The other features are Mac and PC.)</li>
</ul>
<p>The technology behind oneDrum will be applicable to other kinds of files as well -- it's not specific to Office. As oneDrum CEO Jasper Westaway explained to us, "We built a generic sync platform. We can take any arbitrary data structure and any change data gets is replicated everywhere, in a consistent state."</p>
<p>The company started with Office because that's still the product that workers spend most of their time in.</p>
<p>OneDrum has about 10 employees. All of them will be joining Yammer, and the integration is expected to be complete this summer, said Yammer CEO David Sacks.</p>
<p>Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it probably made a very small dent in the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yammer-joins-the-big-guns-with-85-million-funding-round-2012-2">$85 million round Yammer closed in February</a>. Look for more acquisitions to come.</p>
<p><strong>For more information about how Yammer is thinking, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/david-sacks-qa-2011-11">see our interview with David Sacks from last year.</a></strong></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yammer-elbows-into-territory-occupied-by-box-and-jive-2012-4#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/moxie-challenges-jive-promises-profits-this-year-2012-1Moxie Challenges Jive, Promises Profits This Year (JIVE)http://www.businessinsider.com/moxie-challenges-jive-promises-profits-this-year-2012-1
Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:00:00 -0500Matt Rosoff
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4edf96a069beddc20f000008/tom-kelly-ceo-moxie-software.jpg" border="0" alt="Tom Kelly, CEO Moxie Software" /></p><p>Jive Software made a splash last year <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jives-founders-took-an-amazing-11-year-ride-from-iowa-to-ipo-2012-1">with its IPO</a>, becoming the first of the new Silicon Valley enterprise darlings to go public.</p>
<p>But one of Jive's main competitors, Moxie Software, has a little news of its own: it will be profitable by the end of 2012, according to CEO Tom Kelly.</p>
<p>In its filing, <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/28/curebit-apologizes-for-copying-37signals/?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader">Jive warned</a> that it does not expect to be profitable for the "foreseeable future," so Moxie's promise is like throwing down the guantlet.</p>
<p>Kelly also spared no love for other competitors in the fast-growing enterprise collaboration space, like <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/yammer">Yammer</a> and <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/salesforce">Salesforce</a>.com, which last year introduced its Chatter app for communication.</p>
<p>"After all the Yammering, Chattering, and Jive talk going on, success will come down to connecting internal collaboration platforms into doing someting very concrete and very specific," Kelly told us.</p>
<p>Kelly says that Moxie and Jive started from different positions -- Jive was originally used to set up public forums, while Moxie focused on internal communications first. Now, the companies are coming into competition with each other, but Kelly thinks Moxie has the edge because it understands that companies need to interact with customers in lots of ways -- not just in public forums.</p>
<p>"A large financial services organization, and we've got many of those, do not necessarily want their customers sitting together in a community discussing how to solve one another's problems." Moxie can let companies provide answers to their customers through a "chat session, email system, or in a combined chat-cobrowsing environment."</p>
<p>Moxie is also adding a document storage and sharing feature that could bring it into competition with document collaboration companies like Box and <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/dropbox">Dropbox</a>.</p>
<p>"The primary reason is not for storage. The primary reason is ease of use for our customers working together in that environment. As a side effect, do we become a storage play as well?"</p>
<p>Then there's <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/microsoft">Microsoft</a> SharePoint, which <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-26-year-old-entrepreneur-has-raised-more-than-100-million-to-slay-the-giants-2011-8">Box has identified as enemy number one</a> -- or at least ripe for the plucking because users hate it so much.</p>
<p>Kelly doesn't think it's a threat.</p>
<p>"Have you ever used SharePoint for collaboration?" he joked.</p>
<p>"I always tell my sales team, if you go into an account and SharePoint is identified as one of the alternatives they are reviewing, and IT is leading the discussion with SharePoint, and user groups are not playing a key role in that discussion, that is a very bad sign. That's an organization operating on the the old adage where IT says 'here is a solution, you use it because I told you so.' Those types of environments are on a downward trend."</p>
<p>In fact, Kelly thinks Moxie can add value by integrating with SharePoint, which a lot of enterprises use for simple document storage. "I don't view Microsoft as the enemy at all."<br /><br /></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/moxie-challenges-jive-promises-profits-this-year-2012-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/this-32-year-old-entrepreneur-wants-to-reshape-your-workplace-2011-12This 32-Year-Old Entrepreneur Is Bent On Beating One Of Microsoft's Largest Businesseshttp://www.businessinsider.com/this-32-year-old-entrepreneur-wants-to-reshape-your-workplace-2011-12
Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:38:00 -0500Matt Lynley
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4edfd66369bedd241800000d/andy-mcloughlin.jpg" border="0" alt="andy mcloughlin" /></p><p>The term "Enterprise 2.0" is thrown around a lot these days. It refers to a class of companies that are taking ideas from companies like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/twitter" class="hidden_link">Twitter</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/facebook" class="hidden_link">Facebook</a> and applying them to workplace software.</p>
<p>It's led to the rise of a whole new batch of startups with red-hot valuations. Jive, an enterprise social network, filed to go public earlier this year and is valued at $573 million, while <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/boxnet" class="hidden_link">Box.net</a> turned down a $500 million buyout offer earlier this year.</p>
<p>Among them is Huddle, a collaboration service led by 32-year-old Andy McLoughlin and Alastair Mitchell. Born in the UK, McLoughlin has since come stateside to build his company with U.S.-based clients.</p>
<p>We sat down with McLoughlin to find out what's happening in this red-hot startup space. Here's some of what we learned:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Enterprise software is a lot more exciting than me-too consumer apps.</strong> "I'd far prefer to make a tool that hundreds of thousands of business use everyday than some me-too photo app that gets good initial traction but people stop using after a week."</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>He thinks <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/microsoft" class="hidden_link">Microsoft</a> SharePoint is ripe for a takedown. </strong>"There's a huge amount of room to improve upon SharePoint as a content collaboration tool the enterprise. It's sold as free software, yet any CIO who has tried (and failed) to implement it knows that it's far too easy to spend many months and hundreds of thousands of dollars getting it ready for deployment. Users generally hate it and most licenses will never be deployed."</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>To sell to the enterprise nowadays, you have to build software that users love. </strong>"It isn't enterprise software, it's software I would like to use and software CIOs would like to buy. They've all been merciless as they look to replace software in the enterprise that isn't working well. You can convince a CIO to buy software in year one, but if the users don't like it, it'll be tough to get them to upgrade in year two."</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>He thinks competitor Box.net is confused. </strong>"Do they want to be an enterprise play or a consumer play like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/dropbox" class="hidden_link">Dropbox</a>? They are trying to do both, and it's hard to acquire the right kind of customer. We're not gonna have a moment where we are gonna say we aren't an enterprise company any more, we have our sights firmly set on taking SharePoint down."</li>
</ul>
<p>Here's a full transcript:</p>
<p><strong>BUSINESS INSIDER: How did you guys get started?</strong></p>
<p class="p1"><strong>Andy McLoughlin:</strong>&nbsp;I was working as a consultant. I was a web developer and I was working in-house for a big telco, and I worked with a document workflow management company. They wanted to be able to create a private workspace and invite people in.</p>
<p class="p2">That's really where the idea for Huddle came from, to build a product that would do that but deliver it in the cloud. This was back in 2007, which was before cloud was really talked about. I wanted to build it in a way that a small company all the way to a 50,000 person company could buy and roll out. Build a great product that people love. We don't really focus on the small business, mid-market up to enterprise.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>BI: Why did you go with an enterprise company, instead of something easy to gain traction &mdash; like photo-sharing app number 47?&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p class="p1"><strong>AM</strong>: My background is in business software and both Alastair (co-founder) and I are passionate about making software that people love serves a real business need. The day of stuffy, boring enterprise software has passed &mdash; these days business tools should be as intuitive, sexy and fun as the apps we use in our personal lives.&nbsp;I'd far prefer to make a tool that hundreds of thousands of business use everyday than some me-too photo app that gets good initial traction but people stop using after a week.</p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4edfd7a5ecad04b142000008/huddle-pullquote.jpg" border="0" alt="huddle pullquote" /></p>
<p class="p2"><strong>BI: Do you think it's harder to run an enterprise startup than a consumer focused startup?</strong></p>
<p class="p2"><strong>AM</strong>:&nbsp;Running a start-up regardless of what it does is hard, full stop. However, building a start-up that sells to the enterprise is a longer, more expensive game. For example, most start-ups don't want to have to deal with employing and managing a sales teams. They'd prefer to build a light-touch business that only transacts online. This certainly takes different skills to managing a team made up exclusively of developers and designers.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>BI: So what do you think of this whole notion of "enterprise 2.0?"</strong>&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>AM</strong>: We've been talking about his for two or three years. For us, enterprise 2.0 is a great buzzword but it embodies three things. It's about making enterprise software usable, software they enjoy using as much as they enjoy tools they use in their personal lives. Huddle, though there's not a one-to-one comparison, it's giving people the usability that they would expect from a consumer tool.</p>
<p class="p2">Then there's the social element, social really means putting people at the center of what's going on. Enterprise has to be social now. And it's really about access &mdash;&nbsp;traditional enterprise systems were only accessible at the computer at a desk. Enterprise 2.0 is all about access from wherever we are. You might use Huddle on the web, from email, anything else. You have to have clients for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/iphone" class="hidden_link">iPhone</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/blackberry" class="hidden_link">BlackBerry</a>, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/ipad" class="hidden_link">iPad</a>.</p>
<p class="p2">You have to think about what people need to do on the go. They have to get access to the right content at the right time quickly. They have to be able to create and mock up tasks on the go, find the right files quickly. You have to think hard about what people are looking for.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/4deff250ccd1d5c513270000/hp-servers-in-apple-data-center.jpg" border="0" alt="HP servers in Apple data center" />BI: How do you guys stack up against some of the other enterprise startups out there?</strong></p>
<p class="p2"><strong>AM</strong>: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/yammer" class="hidden_link">Yammer</a> is talking about doing work and Huddle is about doing it. That's where I see them. In terms of Box, that's a slightly closer deal. Box is primarily files and a bit of content, they are file storage in the cloud. Huddle is content collaboration &mdash; it isn't just filespace, it's the other tools that help you work on those files.</p>
<p class="p2">Box has evolved from a personal storage tool to sharing. Huddle, the DNA of building a tool for business has been there since day one. We have this idea of the workspace model. Enterprises can quickly spin up work spaces, it's not a place I would store my own personal files.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>BI: Why do you think Microsoft needs to be taken down? What's bad about SharePoint?</strong></p>
<p class="p2"><strong>AM</strong>:&nbsp;I don't think that Microsoft in its entirety needs to be taken down. Personally, I'm a fan of the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/xbox" class="hidden_link">Xbox</a>, and we have tons of customers who rely on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/windows" class="hidden_link">Windows</a> and Office. But there's a huge amount of room to improve upon SharePoint as a content collaboration tool the enterprise. It's sold as free software, yet any CIO who has tried (and failed) to implement it knows that it's far too easy to spend many months and hundreds of thousands of dollars getting it ready for deployment. Users generally hate it and most licenses will never be deployed.</p>
<p class="p2"><strong>BI: So, how big are you guys now? How fast are you growing?</strong></p>
<p class="p2"><strong>AM</strong>: Right now we have about 100,000 business across 180 countries as customers. Huddle is available in 15 languages. We have more than 75 percent of the Fortune 500 using Huddle as well. This was a market we initially knew nothing about, but we've really become experts.&nbsp;More than 70 percent of the central UK governments use Huddle.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>BI: They trust you with your data, even though it's stored on remote servers?</strong></p>
<p class="p1"><strong>AM</strong>: Yes. The way we approached government, we started small &mdash;&nbsp;small deployments inside teams and departments.&nbsp;We have a lot of government who use the public cloud, and we've been accredited by the government for information that's up to, but not including, restricted information.</p>
<p class="p2"><strong>BI: Why did you start an office in San Francisco?</strong></p>
<p class="p2"><strong>AM</strong>: In Q2 2010, we raised a round led by <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/matrix-partners" class="hidden_link">Matrix Partners</a>, a U.S. venture capital firm. We always had our eyes on the US, it's a billion dollar plus global business. The U.S. was our second biggest market, now it's on par with the numbers we sell in the U.K. If we were going to be able to close big deals, we had to have a presence here. It's safe to say the west coast is still the beating heart of technology.&nbsp;</p>
<p class="p1">The office has been a pretty constant size for the last six months. We don't have any engineering in the US, it's primarily sales and marketing. This will stay a commercial office. We're also gonna be opening up on the east coast next year as well.</p>
<p class="p2"><strong>BI: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/where" class="hidden_link">Where</a> are you guys headed next year?</strong></p>
<p class="p2"><strong>AM</strong>: Next year, the focus for us is continuing to do more in the enterprise. Over the last 3 years we've been growing from a provider of tools for SMBs to a provider of tools for the enterprise. We're working with great organizations with lots of users. The software we're building is allowing them to do their work better.</p>
<p class="p2">Making sure the mobile apps are as great as possible, the web UI, we're improving that. We're thinking about how people are using Huddle &mdash;&nbsp;doing a lot of work to make sure the system is at your fingertips really wherever you are. My dream would be that Huddle is almost invisible, it's like collaborative glue that underpins all the work that you do in your business.</p>
<p class="p2"><strong>BI: What is it you and the other successful enterprise startups think you are doing right? Why is your model working?</strong></p>
<p class="p2"><strong>AM</strong>: All of the companies, the one thing all of them have done is creating a great brand. It isn't enterprise software, it's software I would like to use and software CIOs would like to buy. They've all been merciless as they look to replace software in the enterprise that isn't working well. You can convince a CIO to buy software in year one, but if the users don't like it, it'll be tough to get them to upgrade in year two.</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>BI: You guys are growing a little more conservatively, compared to Box.net, which is basically raising a ton of money and growing as fast as it can. Which method works?</strong></p>
<p class="p2"><strong>AM</strong>: The issue with Box.net is that they are confused about what they want to be. Do they want to be an enterprise play or a consumer play like Dropbox? They are trying to do both, and it's hard to acquire the right kind of customer. We're not gonna have a moment where we are gonna say we aren't an enterprise company any more, we have our sights firmly set on taking SharePoint down.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-32-year-old-entrepreneur-wants-to-reshape-your-workplace-2011-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-billion-dollar-businesses-2011-10Microsoft Has A Dozen Billion Dollar Businesses -- Do You Know What They Are? (MSFT)http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-billion-dollar-businesses-2011-10
Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:50:00 -0400Matt Rosoff
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/4e33025369bedd8250000003/steve-ballmer-claps-at-nba-game.jpg" border="0" alt="Steve Ballmer claps at NBA game" /></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/microsoft" class="hidden_link">Microsoft</a> reports earnings after market close today.</p>
<p>Wall Street will probably focus mostly on Microsoft's two biggest businesses: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/windows" class="hidden_link">Windows</a> and Office.</p>
<p>A lot of the tech press will focus on the consumer businesses like <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/bing" class="hidden_link">Bing</a> and the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/xbox" class="hidden_link">Xbox</a>.</p>
<p>But Microsoft is actually a lot more diverse than that. Late last year, the company revealed it now has eleven products that pull in more than $1 billion in sales per year.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/skype" class="hidden_link">Skype</a> will make twelve.</p>
<p>Using Microsoft's recent earnings reports and past public statements, we estimated the company's annual revenue for each of these businesses. Except where noted, these are our estimates, not Microsoft's reported numbers.</p>
<p>Here they are.</p><h3>System Center, server management software: over $1 billion.</h3>
<img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4d9dfd4a4bd7c8d239050000-400-300/system-center-server-management-software-over-1-billion.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>This product line is used to manage software and hardware in corporate data centers. Microsoft named it to its billion-dollar club at the end of its last fiscal year in July 2010. The segment it's in, Server &amp; Tools, showed 11% sales growth during the fiscal year that ended in June 2011 (FY'11).</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>Visual Studio, software development tools: over $1 billion.</h3>
<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4ed40aef69bedd8b4700000e-400-300/visual-studio-software-development-tools-over-1-billion.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>Microsoft named this set of tools for programmers to its billion-dollar club last July. Like System Center, it's in the Server &amp; Tools group, which grew 11% in FY'11.</p></p>
<br/><br/><h3>Dynamics, CRM and accounting software: $1.1 billion</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4ea04feeeab8ea780f00002c-400-300/dynamics-crm-and-accounting-software-11-billion.jpg" alt="" />
<p><p>This set of accounting, CRM, and ERP software products passed the $1 billion mark in 2010. This year, it grew 10%, so $1.1 billion seems like a reasonable estimate.</p>
<p>This is Kirill Tatarinov, who leads the Dynamics business.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p></p>
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-billion-dollar-businesses-2011-10#skype-12-billion-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-best-weapon-against-google-apps-2011-7Microsoft's Army Of Partners Is An Awesome Weapon Against Google Apps (MSFT, GOOG)http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-best-weapon-against-google-apps-2011-7
Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:42:00 -0400Matt Rosoff
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4e1b256eccd1d54a6b120000/microsoft-worldwide-partner-conference-crowd-staples-center.jpg" border="0" alt="Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference crowd Staples Center" /></p><p>The common wisdom in Silicon Valley is that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/microsoft" class="hidden_link">Microsoft</a> is a company on a steep decline, maybe <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-guru-of-silicon-valley-startups-steve-blank-2011-5">in danger of going out of business</a>.</p>
<p>Don't tell that to the thousands of <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/microsoft">Microsoft</a> partners who have packed the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/staples" class="hidden_link">Staples</a> Center in Los Angeles to hear <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/steve-ballmer" class="hidden_link">Steve Ballmer</a> and other Microsoft executives speak.</p>
<p>Microsoft collects more than 90% of its revenue through these partners. Most of them earn their living by selling other services -- a lot are systems integrators, who combine Microsoft software with products from other vendors into custom solutions for business customers.</p>
<p>To them, the idea that Microsoft is in danger is laughable.</p>
<p>An attendee from one integrator, <a href="http://www.nwnit.com/services/Sys%20Int.asp">NWN</a>, explained that his company has grown from one office to more than ten in the last few years, and now books several hundred million dollars a year in annual revenue. Selling Microsoft software like Lync (instant messaging, voice over IP, and videoconferencing) and SharePoint (collaboration), particularly to state and local governments, is a huge reason why.</p>
<p>This rep said that NWN was a little worried about Microsoft's move to the cloud -- installing and running server software is a great business for a systems integrator -- but admits it was necessary because customers are demanding it. It's taken a few years for Microsoft to get its partners on board with services like Office 365, but now they are beginning to build practices around these services, too.</p>
<p>As far as iPads replacing <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/windows" class="hidden_link">Windows</a> in the enterprise, these partners aren't seeing it. A few executives and individuals might be bringing tablets to work, but IT departments are still firmly betting on <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/windows">Windows</a> and Office, and that gives them a powerful wedge to sell other back-end software and services.</p>
<p>There are more than 15,000 of these partners here, from 120 countries -- their badges read like a geography lesson, with Croatia, El Salvador, and Mauritius all represented. All of them have bet their businesses at least in part on selling Microsoft software and services.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/google" class="hidden_link">Google</a> is building its own partner channel, but Microsoft has a 20-year head start and a much bigger product portfolio. It's going to take a long time for <a class="hidden_link" href="http://www.businessinsider.com/blackboard/google">Google</a> to catch up.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsofts-best-weapon-against-google-apps-2011-7#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-is-moving-slowly-to-add-social-features-to-office-so-jive-is-filling-the-gaps-2011-5Microsoft Is Moving Too Slowly On Social Features For Office, So Jive Is Filling The Gaps (MSFT, GOOG)http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-is-moving-slowly-to-add-social-features-to-office-so-jive-is-filling-the-gaps-2011-5
Mon, 23 May 2011 15:05:58 -0400Matt Rosoff
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/4d59cf55ccd1d59d2a190000/steve-ballmer-microsoft-ceo.jpg" border="0" alt="Steve Ballmer Microsoft CEO" /></p><p>Microsoft is gradually adding social and online collaboration features to Office and its other products, but <a href="http://www.jivesoftware.com/">Jive Software</a> is here now for businesses that don't want to wait for Microsoft.</p>
<p>The company been around since 2001 but Jive started getting some real buzz last year with a <a href="http://www.jivesoftware.com/news/releases/2010/7/jive-closes-30-million-investment-from-kleiner-perkins-caufield--byers-and-sequoia-capital">$30 million investment</a> from Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia, along with some positive reports from analyst firms like Gartner.</p>
<p>Today, Jive bought Israeli startup <a href="http://www.offisync.com/overview.html">OffiSync</a>, which helps users collaborate on Microsoft Office files that are stored in Google Docs, for a <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/23/jive-buys-microsoft-office-collaboration-plugin-offisync-for-up-to-30-million/">rumored price</a> of between $25 and $30 million.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Jive is already similar to some of the things Microsoft has been doing with SharePoint Server and is planning for Office 365, and the OffiSync acquisition brings it even closer.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.offisync.com/overview.html">OffiSync</a> is add-on software for Office 2003 and later that makes it work better with Google Apps -- you can save files directly to Google from the Office app itself, and can collaborate in real time.</p>
<p>Google released a similar product, Cloud Connect for Office, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-embraces-and-extends-microsoft-office-2010-11">back in February</a>, making OffiSync look a little bit redundant. But Jive will now integrate the product into its own platform, which will smooth the whole collaboration process -- for instance, if you attach a PowerPoint to an email message, recipients will be able to see and edit it together without ever having to leave Outlook.</p>
<p>This video has a good overview of how it all works together.</p>
<p><iframe width="425" height="349" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lAm4s7GjAlE"></iframe></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-is-moving-slowly-to-add-social-features-to-office-so-jive-is-filling-the-gaps-2011-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-skype-buy-was-about-businesses-not-consumers-2011-5Microsoft: Skype Buy Is About Business, Not Consumers (MSFT)http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-skype-buy-was-about-businesses-not-consumers-2011-5
Thu, 12 May 2011 17:06:00 -0400Matt Rosoff
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4dcb00aa4bd7c8786f150000/steveballmer-pointing-tbi-skype-shirt.jpg" border="0" alt="steveballmer-pointing-tbi-skype-shirt" /></p><p>A second Microsoft source confirms that the company bought Skype <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-microsoft-bought-skype-an-insider-explains-2011-5">to "accelerate" its position</a> in the communication market, and emphasized that it's mainly a business play.</p>
<p>This person, who has close insight into Microsoft's investment strategy but who declined to be named, explains that the Skype deal is a lot like Microsoft's purchase of enterprise search provider FAST back in 2008.</p>
<p>Microsoft integrated FAST into the SharePoint business collaboration product line. SharePoint already had basic enterprise search, but nothing as sophisticated as what FAST offered. SharePoint is one of the unheralded products in Microsoft's business software line-up, contributing well over $1 billion in revenue per year (although some of this comes from bundled licenses that aren't actually used).</p>
<p>Expect Microsoft to use Skype in a similar way to boost Lync.</p>
<p>In particular, Skype's ability to connect calls to traditional phone systems is a big asset.</p>
<p>The brand was also important: when Microsoft talks to IT managers about Lync, they often hear back "that's a lot like Skype."</p>
<p>Microsoft believes that selling IP-based communication systems to replace outmoded PBX phone systems will eventually be a $5 to $12 billion annual market.</p>
<p>If Skype helps Microsoft capture even a relatively small part of this market -- say $2 billion a year -- then the $8.5 billion purchase price looks pretty cheap.</p>
<p>Lync rolls up into the Microsoft Business Division that also includes Office and Exchange Server (email). That division has been responsible for most of Microsoft's growth for the last year, but will face difficult comparables starting next quarter, as the anniversary of the Office 2010 release is passed.</p>
<p>Skype is obviously strong consumer product as well, and Microsoft will continue to offer it to consumers. But analysts who think Microsoft is hoping to earn its money back by selling ads against it are missing the point, says this person.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-skype-buy-was-about-businesses-not-consumers-2011-5#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p>